Barry Forshaw On a Hiding to Nowhere: Writing Brit Noir

Frankly, I'm not sure why the hell I started it. My
publisher had been pleased with the success of Nordic Noir and Euro Noir,
so I wasn't surprised to be asked to write a book covering the crime fiction of
my own countrymen and women. Apart from anything else, several writers had been
nagging me to do just that – even though I'd already edited (and written a
goodly chunk of) British Crime Writing.
But that was an expensive two-volume hardback encyclopaedia -- a modest-sized
paperback was the order of the day now. And there was a problem with Brit Noir – several problems, in fact.
How, in a pocket-sized edition, to cover all contemporary (e.g. living) British
crime writers (including the Scottish and the Irish) and do justice to them
all? Obviously, I couldn't, and there will be those who would say: ‘Why has X
got only a couple of paragraphs while Y has a longer entry? It should be the
other way round!’ (And you can be damn sure the authors themselves will mutter
this – unless they’ve got a sizeable mention.)

Getting the
balance right

But I was spared at least one problem – getting that
now-essential balance right between the quota of male and female -- which just took
care of itself (though two massively significant woman writers, PD James and
Ruth Rendell, are not in Brit Noir,
having sadly departed the contemporary scene, the book’s remit).

In terms of gender, while the middle-aged, dyspeptic (and
frequently alcoholic) male copper still holds sway, eternally finding it
difficult to relate to his alienated family, the female equivalent of this
archetype is the woman who has achieved a position of authority but who is
constantly obliged to prove her worth. Not necessarily in terms of tackling
male sexism – although that syndrome persists as a useful shorthand. But the
influential figure of Lynda La Plante’s Jane Tennison has to some extent been replaced
by women who simply get on with the job – and their professional problems are
predicated by the fact that they are simply better at solving crime than their
superiors; in other words – a mirror image of the male detective who is
prevalent in the genre. This hard-to-avoid uniformity inevitably makes itdifficult for writers to differentiate their bloody-minded female protagonists
from the herd, but ingenuity is paramount here – one female detective in the
current crop, for instance – M.J. Arlidge’s D.I. Helen Grace -- differs from
her fellow policewomen in having an inconvenient taste for rough sex and
S&M.

Addressing
the mainstream of crime fiction in the modern age (and leaving aside the legacy
of the past), it is clear that the field is in ruder health than it has ever
been – such is the range of trenchant and galvanic work now that an argument
could be made that we are living in a second Golden Age.

Who’s ‘Noir’ and who
isn’t

Another
issue I knew I would be taken to task for was just exactly who was ‘noir’ and who
was not. You'd be amazed to hear for how many people the exact definition of
that word was crucially important. But I made a simple decision early on.

The
remit of Brit Noir has been as wide
as possible: every possible genre that is subsumed under the heading of crime
fiction is here, from the novel of detection to the blockbuster thriller to the
occasional novel of espionage (though they are the exception). But – please! --
don’t tell me that some of authors here are not really ‘Noir’; let’s not get
locked into a discussion of nomenclature. ‘Noir’, here, means ‘crime’ – the
distinctly non-Noir Alexander McCall Smith may not want to be included, but he
is. My aim here was – simply – to maximise inclusivity regarding contemporary
British crime writing (historical crime apart – that’s another book), whether
from bloody noir territory to the sunnier, less confrontational end of the
spectrum.

I offer
preliminary apologies to any writers from the Republic of Ireland, who may be
fervent nationalists and object to their inclusion in a book called Brit Noir; their inclusion is all part
of my agenda of celebrating as many interesting and talented writers as I can.
Though it’s not quite the same, sometime before the last Scottish referendum, I
asked both Val McDermid and Ian Rankin if they would still want to be included
in any a study of British crime writers if the vote were ‘yes’ to cutting loose
from the UK, or if they ought to be dropped as they were now foreigners; both
opted for the former option, which is why I took this decision regarding the
Republic of Ireland, though I appreciate it’s not quite the same thing – I know
Eire is a completely different country!

It should be noted that Brit Noir is principally designed to be used as a reference book to
contemporary crime, i.e.,(mostly) current -- rather than older -- writers, as
opposed to a text to be read straight through. But if you want to do the
latter, how can I stop you? (If you chose the latter option, you’ll note that
I've erred on the side of generosity throughout, avoiding hatchet jobs; in
guide such as this, I feel that should be the modus operandi.

Geographical Quandaries

But
where to place authors in the book geographically? If the layout of the book
was to be geographical – i.e., to place the work of the various authors in the
regions where they have their detectives operating -- that would be fine with,
say, Ian Rankin, largely keeping Rebus in Edinburgh. But what about his fellow Scot,
Val McDermid? Her Tony Hill/Carol Jordan books are set mostly in the North of
England – and, what’s more, in the fictitious city of Bradfield. Should I have
a section for ‘Bradfield’ with just one author entry? And what about those
authors who set their work in unspecified towns? You see my problem, I hope --
and that wasn't all. What about the writers with different series of books set
in different places, such as Ann Cleeves? Or Brits who place their coppers in
foreign cities? I briefly considered elaborate cross-referencing, but before
rolling my sleeves up, I decided I'd rather use my energies in other areas. So
here's the solution: if you want to find a particular author, don't bother
trying to remember what location their books are set in and thumb fruitlessly
through the Midlands or the North-West; simply turn to the index at the back of
the book, which will tell you precisely where to find everyone.

In
the final analysis, Franklin D. Roosevelt was right – if you can't stand the
heat, stay out of the kitchen. And if I take some heat for Brit Noir, I just hope that the balance of opinion lies in favour
of the book. But if not… perhaps it's time I took that long holiday in France…

Brit Noir: The Pocket Essential
Guide to the Crime Fiction, Film & TV of the British Isles